


assimilation

by relationshipcrimes



Series: entomology [7]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 15:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18781483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relationshipcrimes/pseuds/relationshipcrimes
Summary: The White Lady caresses the smooth white soul-mask of the Pure Vessel’s head, plucking a ribbon from its horns. The Pure Vessel doesn’t fidget, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t anything.





	assimilation

At first, the Pure Vessel was barred from being used as the White Lady’s serving prop at society functions because it made her lady friends nervous; later, the White Lady would allow no one  _but_  the Pure Vessel serve the tea for exactly the same reason. Watching a group of high-society, perfumed-and-made-up noblewomen become increasingly uncomfortable to have to take their cream and sugar from a child who never blinked, smiled, or even spoke practically drove Dryya up the wall, until one day, while the court ladies were in a passionate debate about the propriety of birth-status, Dryya snatched up her nail and stormed out. The White Lady blinked once, slowly, amused, and petted the head of the Pure Vessel, who did not blink at all.  

“Oh dear,” said one lady.  

“Poor thing,” said another.  

“You don’t suppose she thought we were talking about her…?” 

“Certainly. Fierce Dryya has proven herself an asset in every way, despite her birth.” 

“But with all due respect, My Queen, perhaps it would be best to invest in a knight who will not leave you undefended…?” 

The White Lady smiled indulgently, and murmured this and that, and the conversation went on.  

They found Dryya in the Queen’s chambers two hours later, where she had burnt herself out of indignation and had smoothly transitioned to apologetic, but the White Lady waved an absent-minded hand and Dryya fell silent. Then Dryya said: “I must insist on apologizing for my behavior. I would defend you and the Pale King to the death, gladly.” 

The White Lady murmured something or other, lifted the Pure Vessel to her lap, and set about removing its layers of formal attire. The Pure Vessel let her move its limbs limply, without protest but without cooperation. She hadn’t asked it to help, so instead let her maneuver it like a dressing doll, her roots twisting around its wrists to hold it in place.  

Dryya swallowed. Then: “But to hear them say that in front of you! As if they don’t know that the Pale King’s birth was foreign and unknown. As if they don’t know that the Pale King made Himself from the ground up…?” 

The White Lady tilts her head this way and that.  

“Not, of course, that the idea of the self-made man does not discount the thousands of people who helped him along the way…” 

“Behind every single triumph lies the efforts of a thousand unthanked laborers,” says the White Lady.  

“Of course, My Queen.” Dryya herself long ago insisted on acknowledging that it was the White Lady, not the Wyrm, who made the Pale King.  

The White Lady caresses the smooth white soul-mask of the Pure Vessel’s head, plucking a ribbon from its horns. The Pure Vessel doesn’t fidget, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t anything.  

“But it is true,” says the White Lady peaceably. “It is true. One can become whatever is required of them, in theory, irregardless of flawed or insufficient nature.”  

At last, the White Lady brushes the Pure Vessel clean, sets it down on the floor, and rises to drift away. The holes of the Pure Vessel’s eyes stare out at her. Watching. Listening. “If one tries hard enough to make the theory true,” the White Lady says absently, without a care to who hears her, and forgets to command the Pure Vessel to follow her when she goes. 


End file.
